


pretending that it's right

by Timjan



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Alternative Perspective, Angst, Cheating, Infidelity, M/M, Remix, Tour Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-29 04:04:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19822162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Timjan/pseuds/Timjan
Summary: In the hot tub, the bifurcated Tommys that Jon has lived with for over a decade, now – one a steady presence, one a fleeting memory – come together for the first time ever. The ghost of Tommy past, young and open and wanting, flickers like a hologram in the steam rising from the hot water, overlaid on the Tommy of today like a double exposed photo. Then, like getting the settings on a pair of binoculars just right, past and present snap together into a new, sharper image; a Tommy-now that never really stopped being Tommy-then. A Tommy-now that is Jon’s for the taking.





	pretending that it's right

**Author's Note:**

  * For [okaystop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/okaystop/gifts).
  * Inspired by [I been wondering that maybe you've been thinking 'bout me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18480895) by [okaystop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/okaystop/pseuds/okaystop). 



> Hello there, okaystop! You hinted at wanting to read this perspective flip, and I delivered... after a while, lol. I wrote this back in May and even sent it to my beta back then, but then life kinda happened for a month and a half. Anyway, I loved the story of yours that this is based on (my first ever treat!), and it was a delight to try to get into your Jon's head! : )
> 
> Also, thanks, thanks, thanks to my beta, [SelfRescuingPrincess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SelfRescuingPrincess/), for helping to make this better even though the subject matter wasn't your favorite! You're the best! Jon makes a lot more sense here thanks to you! <3
> 
> Title is from Lee Ann Womack's _I May Hate Myself In The Morning_ , just like the title of the original story.
> 
> Keep it safe, keep it secret.

In the hot tub, the bifurcated Tommys that Jon has lived with for over a decade, now – one a steady presence, one a fleeting memory – come together for the first time ever. The ghost of Tommy past, young and open and wanting, flickers like a hologram in the steam rising from the hot water, overlaid on the Tommy of today like a double exposed photo. Then, like getting the settings on a pair of binoculars just right, past and present _snap_ together into a new, sharper image; a Tommy-now that never really stopped being Tommy-then. A Tommy-now that is Jon’s for the taking.

Jon gasps.

\---

When Jon thinks back to today in the weeks and months that will follow, he’ll be able to truthfully tell himself that he’d had only pure intentions. Well, at least at first. Like, when he invited his best friend to join him for a nightly soak in hotel roof hot tub, he’d only thought of relaxation and companionable conversation. Sure, he’d been a little amped from the show, still a little antsy… but there’d been no thought of things getting steamy in any sense but the literal. There had been no writing on the hotel wall.

Or had there been?

Why are they just the two of them up here, for example? Just Tommy and Jon on opposite ends of a hotel jacuzzi? Well, that’s an easy answer: Dan has family in this town, so he’s not staying at the hotel. When Jon knocked on Lovett’s door, towel over his shoulder, Lo and Travis had been engrossed in re-working one of the games for tomorrow, in light of the latest bullshit with Pelosi and McConnell. And Jon wasn’t about to ask his employees to sneak into a hot tub with him, without proper swimwear. So Tommy it was. (It was always Tommy.)

And sure, Tommy had seemed a little hesitant when Jon came knocking on his door, but Jon hadn’t really given it a second thought. He knew that if you’re just good-natured at Tommy for long enough, he’ll generally tell you what’s up. And there was no rush to find out what was bugging Tommy, so Jon had let it go for the time being. Soon they’d be soaking together in sizzling water. Surely Tommy would loosen up then.

But wait, if you go a level deeper there might be more to it. It’s easy to lie to yourself if you do it in layers, but if Jon _were_ to more closely examine the lead up to right now, what would he find? Hadn’t there, maybe, been a few more glances shared between him and Tommy on stage today? Hadn’t there been a certain pull, like a rope that had hung loose for years and years suddenly snapping taut? When Jon found out about the hot tub, hadn’t his mind flashed back to a memory of Tommy-then, in the way it often did but he rarely acknowledged?

_(It had been the night when Obama had clinched the Democratic nomination, and Jon and Tommy, unable to sleep at their Minneapolis hotel, had sneaked into another hotel hot tub at 04.50 AM. That had been the first time that Jon had dared to truly take the initiative, to not just touch Tommy back in dutiful reciprocation. He’d gotten Tommy off in the water, telling himself that that was all he felt guilty about as he pressed his hot face into Tommy’s shoulder.)_

Hadn’t Jon, perchance, when he knocked on Lovett’s hotel room door, been hoping for a no? And the pull from when they were on stage, hadn’t it been there again just moments ago, when Jon had caught Tommy watching him undress?

It _had_ , of course it had, all of it, there’s no denying it now. But it hadn’t been enough to rise into Jon’s consciousness, at least not fully. He hadn’t been truly aware of it, _honestly_ , even when he’d said to Tommy, “This is good” – meaning the hot tub, _really_ – “I feel like I’ve been on edge all night, just need to relax before I can sleep, you know what I mean?”

There had been something angular – pointed – in Tommy’s voice when he replied “Sure… Usually I just call Hanna and she helps me out with that.”

Jon had only had time to think _‘Hanna, what…?’_ before Tommy had looked straight at him from across the hot tub, eyes dark in the dark, and added, “Or I’m sure there’s hotel lotion in your bathroom.”

 _Jesus._ So that’s when the past first had come back to haunt the present.

“Tom,” Jon had said, not sure if it was a warning – to Tommy? to himself? – or a plea. Did he want Tommy to stop talking, to shuffle the deck, and let the card he’d just played disappear back into it? Or did he want Tommy to call his bluff? To raise the stakes?

Tommy had shrugged, as if he wasn’t sure where he was going with this either. “Better than sweating it out in a hot tub with me.”

The moment had hung between them, the pale imprint of 27-year-old Tommy smirking in the heat rising from the tub, even as the real Tommy refused to look at Jon. Jon could still have laughed it off, pretended Tommy’s train of thought had wooshed right by him, where he stood oblivious on the platform.

“Fuck,” he’d said instead. “I haven’t thought about that in years.”

It didn’t feel like a lie when he said it. Jon’s only a good liar when he’s also lying to himself.But he _hasn’t_ thought about him and Tommy, not in the daytime, not in the light, not with other people around. Sure, he’d been reminded of it earlier today, but it had only been for a moment, he’d hardly even _looked_ at the memory as it flashed by, he barely even remembered remembering it now.

Tommy’s not a good liar either. That is, he’s good at saying both truths and half-truths with a blank face and a flat affect. But straight up feigning a reaction, or wrapping a falsehood into his usual speech? No. And Jon can read him well.

So when Tommy forces out an unconvincing “Yeah,” a bullshit agreement to Jon’s bullshit statement, that’s when it happens. That’s when the two Tommys merge, past and present, and Jon, maybe for the first time ever, sees clearly the whole man right in front of him, flushed and wild-eyed and edible.

\---

Tommy-for-the-taking runs a hand through his hair, doesn’t seem to notice the Facts of Jon’s life reconfiguring themselves into a new Truth. He’s still not looking at Jon. Jon, for his part, can’t look away from Tommy. The world is vibrating but Tommy is still, right in the middle of Jon’s field of vision, red all over with the heat from the tub, muscles on full display, even with most of him submerged in the simmering water. When Tommy’s gaze out of nowhere snaps back to his, Jon gasps again.

“You ever think about that, Tom?” he hears himself ask, as if from far away, and then he _doesn’t_ really hear Tommy’s confused protestations, his own nonsense answer.

 _It’s not real if we don’t kiss_ , Jon had repeated to himself like a mantra, a decade ago. _It’s just fucking around, it doesn mean anything._ So then of course Tommy had to go and kiss him, and, well... then it _had_ indeed become too real. Jon had freaked out, and Tommy had apologized, and Jon had at least had sense enough to promise to forgive and forget. (He’s not sure he ever did either. He’s not sure there ever was anything to forgive.)

Jon _wants_ to make it real, now, wants it to _mean_ something; he pushes himself towards Tommy, ready to glide through the water right into his lap. But this time, Tommy’s the one to freak out.

He shoots out of the water, splashing Jon, mumbles something about a promise to Lovett, about tomorrow’s game. As he gets out of the tub, Jon has time to notice how his underwear – not TommyJohn, Jon observes absurdly – clings to his body, to his dick, a clear shape through the wet fabric, before he covers it up with his towel.

 _Oh, right_ , Jon thinks, _he’s big. I’d forgotten_.

“Oh, right,” Jon says, out loud. There’s something in his throat – desire? disappointment? – so he clears it discreetly before adding, “Have a good night.”

“Night, Jon,” Tommy says quietly, picking up his stuff from beside the tub.

And then Jon’s watching him walk away ( _again_ ), cursing the towel that keeps him from divining whether the not-TommyJohns cling to his ass as well. Tommy has a great ass…

Jon stews in the hot tub for long after Tommy leaves. His fingertips and toes are turning into raisins, but he can’t make himself get up, can’t make himself stop thinking. He thinks _fuck_ , and _all this time_ , and _another chance_ , and _Emily_ … He thinks _forget about it_ , but then he thinks _I just need to know_.

 _I just need to know, and then we’ll deal with the fallout when it comes_.

\---

Jon wakes early the next morning, from dreams of Tommy’s hands and mouth. He stares up at the white hotel ceiling for a few minutes, looking for his better angels. None appear.

Jon got into politics because he wanted – still wants – to help make the country better, make the world better. Of course that’s mostly why. But no one gets into politics _for real_ unless they’re drawn to power. And it _is_ a power rush, the world re-aligning itself around him, laying bare a foundational truth: Tommy would follow him anywhere. Leave the White House even when he kinda wanted to stay for a year or so more. Move from San Francisco to LA, even though Hanna had wanted to stay. (Poor Hanna.) Jon has always known this, in a way, but somehow he’d always thought of it as them doing these things _together_. Now he sees that where _he_ goes, Tom will follow. And he knows where he wants to go next.

Lovett called Jon ‘spoiled,’ once, early in their acquaintance, during a fight they’d gotten into out of pure exhaustion, up way too late to finish a speech. And maybe there’s something to that; when Jon really wants something, he usually gets it.

Jon gets out of bed, ready to _seize the fucking day_.

\---

At breakfast, Tommy gives Jon a wary look before sitting down at the Crooked table, several seats away. Jon greets him with a cheery “Mornin’!” but manages to hold back the grin that threatens to explode across his face at the sight of high cheekbones and morning-mussed hair. Tommy avoids Jon’s eyes for the rest of the meal, and that suits Jon fine. He doesn’t want Tommy to run away again. And he doesn’t want anybody else to think that anything is up. (Plus, he needs more time to strategize, come up with an actionable outline.) Thank god for Priyanka and Travis, and their inexhaustible yakety-yak. All the rest of the table could be sulking in silence and they would still give off the impression of a lively discussion.

Tommy avoids Jon for the rest of the day too, and after a while it gets old. Whenever Jon manages to get him alone, he’s “just about to go over that thing with Tanya,” or “back in a sec, I need to double check something with Dan.” (Thankfully, they’re travelling by train, so Jon won’t have to get through a flight without Tommy at his side – but on the other hand, maybe that would have made Tommy get over himself…)

Another thing that Jon has always thought of as something he and Tommy did _together_ : fooling around on the campaign trail. But now, from this position, he can see how Tommy facilitated the move from ‘buddies’ to… whatever it was that they were, for a few months there. Now, Jon remembers a “You need to get laid,” here, a hand on his knee there. Later a “You know, I could…” from a Tommy who was already sinking to the floor. “It’s okay. It’s just me.” More hopeful than pushy, but still unmistakably taking the lead. Jon had just followed; he’d been such a follower back then. Since that time, he has learned that he can be a leader, too. Now, he could take a leaf out of Tommy’s book and take the lead. If Tommy would just stop avoiding him.

But Tommy doesn’t, and as Jon won’t set his plan in motion until after the show tonight, he is left with hours and hours to second guess himself. And when Emily sends a photo of Leo sitting at the piano, one paw on the keys, Jon feels so guilty that he thinks he’s going to puke. It only lasts for a moment, though. Then his defenses shoot up, lighting quick. Emily has always loved Tommy, he tells himself. Like, she has joked about threesomes and polygamy since forever. Early in their relationship, when they were still in the process of retelling their lives to each other, Jon had even told her that “Tommy and I kissed once.” Not a lie, but missing a lot of truth. In any case, Emily had been amused, a little curious, and ultimately unbothered. So she’d be fine with him and Tommy, probably. It’s _Hanna_ who would have a problem with it, more like.

Jealous Hanna, whose laugh always gets a little forced when someone makes a joke about Jon and Tommy being old marrieds, who winces when Emily kisses Tommy’s cheek even though she happily accepts Emily-kisses herself. Hanna, who refused to let Lovett be part of her and Tommy’s wedding party, just because she knew that Tommy’d had a crush on him way back in the day. (Jon assumes that’s what happened, anyway. Like, he’s never actually asked Tommy about it – awkward! – but it only makes sense, right?) If only she knew.

And Jon _likes_ Hanna, has no wish to hurt her, but the current state of affairs is not his fault. He’s been winning the fight for Tommy’s affection since forever, without even trying – without even knowing he was in the fight! (And honestly, what difference does it really make if he takes advantage of the victory or not?)

Jon doesn’t stop to think that maybe it’s not that simple. Doesn’t make the connection that if all this stuff with Tommy has changed nothing in how _he_ feels about Emily, then maybe Tommy’s affections aren’t so single-track either. (Doesn’t think about how Tommy’s face shone at his wedding.) And he also doesn’t interrogate whether he really believes that his _own_ wife would be fine with him fucking someone else behind her back. Layers of self-deception, that’s the secret. And Hanna’s the perfect scapegoat, freeing Jon up to sin.

\---

After the show, Jon sees Tommy grab Dan’s arm just as they’re leaving the venue to go out for some post-show drinks. Jon tries not to stare as Tommy shakes his head, lips moving but voice too low for Jon to hear. Dan nods, claps Tommy on the back, and walk-jogs to catch up with the rest of the Crooked entourage. Jon scrunches up his nose. If Tommy had looked like that while talking to _him_ , Jon wouldn’t have left his side until he knew what he was so upset about, but maybe Dan didn’t see it? In any case, it seems that Jon will have to scrap Plan A: subtle seduction in a dark corner. Annoying, but maybe not completely unexpected.

Tommy had been great on stage, ready with little quips and nuggets of interesting trivia, connecting all the more with Dan and Lovett and their guests as he ignored Jon. (Jon, for his part, had just gone through the motions, moderating and expressing performative anger towards Republicans at appropriate times. His mind had been elsewhere.) And of course he wants to be alone now, all the better to keep avoiding Jon.

At the bar, Jon hangs out for a while, so no one will get suspicious. Then he pretends to suddenly remember “something I need to take care of,” and finds the dark corner he’d been fantasizing about for Plan A. Seated there, he gets to work on plan B, taking out his phone and starting to type.

‘I can’t stand you ignoring me. Can we talk?’ he sends, at 10:46. It seems like a decent enough opener – maybe a little underhanded, but whatever. You can’t open with “I know you freaked out last time but would you please let me seduce you?”

A few minutes pass without a reply. Jon shakes his head when Lovett catches his eye from the other side of the room, quirking an eyebrow in a silent question/judgement. Jon bends down over his phone again mostly to avoid Lovett’s curious gaze.

‘Tommy?’ he types out, adding a second message at 10:53 even though that’s always a no-go, everybody knows that. ‘Ok maybe I don’t jsut want to talk. But I rlly cant stand you ignoring me, please tell me what I need to do and I’ll do it’

Okay, so that was maybe more honest than it was smooth, but whatever. Jon just needs to get Tommy alone, and then Tommy will realize that he wants this as much as Jon does.

As he waits for a reply to that one, Jon orders another beer. And then another, all the while sending text after text filled with ‘Im actually pretty worried abt you’s and ‘u cant avoid me frever’s. It all culminates in, ‘Cmon tom wed be great tgthr u kno u want to’

 _Fuck, that’s too much_ , Jon realizes it as soon as he clicks “send.” And Tommy still hasn’t responded at all. Jon needs to change tack. After he sends a quick, 'Fuck srry. Sorry. I just need t talk t yu'

“Hey, Travis,” he says, once he’s sauntered back over to his colleagues’ table. “Did you say you know how to score weed in this town?”

\---

Jon knocks on the door to Tommy’s hotel room. Then he waits, hands shaking in time with his heart’s thumping at the back of his throat. This is it. The final answer, yes or no. If Tommy refuses to open the door, Jon will drop this forever, send an apology text and do what he’d forced Tommy to do, all those years ago. _Fuck, that must have sucked_. But Jon’s gonna make it up to him now. If Tommy opens the door.

Tommy opens the door. Jon feels a smile spread over his face, stretching out the corners of his mouth; he’s in. Tommy never tells him ‘no’ to his face, not about this kind of thing. His ‘no’s are unanswered texts and unopened doors, hasty retreats. But now he’s cornered. And he wants this, Jon knows he does. He might need a little last minute convincing, sure, but, well. Jon’s _very_ persuasive. It’s his job.

“You weren’t answering texts,” Jon says. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, just tired,” Tommy says. The way he says it, it doesn’t seem like he’s even _read_ Jon’s texts, which is probably a good thing. He looks wary enough as it is.

“I brought you a surprise,” Jon says. He extricates his bag of pot from his pocket with some struggle, waves it around a bit. Tells himself to try not to seem too crossfaded. “Can I come in?”

“Sure,” Tommy says. It doesn’t sound like he’s actually “sure,” but he lets Jon in, so Jon takes it.

Jon sits down on the edge of Tommy’s bed. It shows clear signs of having had a Tommy in it up until very recently, and Jon tries not to think about that. Tries not to fiddle with his little baggie of weed too much, tries not to ogle Tommy-in-just-a-t-shirt-and-boxers too obviously, where he stands a few feet away, arms crossed, biceps bulging.

“We’ll have to go out on the balcony if you want to smoke that,” Tommy says, something twitchy about him. He’s clearly trying to fill the silence, stop it from getting any heavier.

“We don’t really have to smoke,” Jon concedes. Now that he’s here, he realizes that he actually does want to just talk to Tommy – wants to just be with Tommy – more than he wants to silently lure him into doped-out make-outs. He never feels fully like himself when he’s not able to talk to Tommy. “I just – can we talk?”

Tommy stiffens. “What about?”

Jon should have planned for _this_ more, should have come with words prepared, not just a vague notion of weed being the solution to his interpersonal problems. He’s a speechwriter, for fucks sake. As it is, unprepared words just rush out of him. “Last night… I was lying. I’ve thought about it a lot. Honestly, I probably think about it too much.”

Tommy’s still frozen on the spot, rod straight, arms crossed. A muscle in his neck spasms.

 _Someone_ has to move, or time will freeze and they’ll be trapped in this awkwardness forever without even having kissed again. So Jon does; he’s the leader, now – it has to be him. He puts down his baggie, looks down into his lap for a moment. Then he slaps his knees, looks back up at Tom. “What about you? How often do you think about it, really?”

“What does it matter?” Tommy asks in his press briefing monotone, giving everything away by trying to give nothing away. “It was years ago. A lifetime ago. It didn’t go anywhere and we managed to stay friends through it anyway and now we’re business partners, we’re…” Tommy makes a strangled little noise into the sudden significant silence, that Jon doesn’t care to fill in. When he speaks again, he does so with a finality that isn’t fooling anyone. “It doesn’t matter how often I think about it.”

Jon’s already won, he’s sure of it, he just has to seal the deal. “But you do think about it?”

Tommy sighs, and finally shifts on his feet, relaxing a fraction. “Jon, what’s going on?”

 _I want you, and I know you want me too_ , Jon thinks. But he can’t say that. He needs to say whatever will make that the truth. “I –”

What’s the right play, here? Tommy’s eyes are heavy on Jon, and Jon has so much he wants to get across to Tommy, so much that he could communicate if Tommy would just let him touch him. He touches himself instead, little vicarious caresses up and down his own arm, wishing he could reach out and loosen Tommy’s death grip around his own biceps.

In the end, he goes for the truth, aided by liquid courage. “I never stopped thinking about it.” he says, his hand moving up to rub the back of his neck. “I was stupid, back then. And an asshole. It was one thing to just –” let you pleasure me while barely reciprocating “– sneak around, but then you kissed me and I had to –” ‘deal with it being real,’ Jon wants to say, but he _hadn’t_ actually dealt with it, that was the whole problem. “You wanted me to deal with it and I didn’t. Or I did, but I did it by deciding that I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t – admit it to myself.”

Jon pauses to let Tommy respond, but he doesn’t. God, Jon wishes he would at least look him in the eye. When he speaks again it’s mostly just because he can’t stand the silence. “I couldn’t admit that it wasn’t just passing the time or stress or the campaign or whatever – boredom, I don’t know. That it was more, it was you, and –”

Suddenly, Tommy looks back at Jon, his gaze searing – be careful what you wish for – and Jon falters into silence.

“You’re a decade too late,” Tommy says, leaning forward, eyes and voice hard and menacing.

Someone who knew Tommy less well might have been scared off by this display, but Jon sees the bluff. Tommy’s grip around his upper arms has softened, his shoulders have slumped down a fraction. His eyelid twitches like it does when he’s about to cry.

As Jon holds his gaze, Tommy’s eyes soften. Again, Jon can sense the presence of young Tommy in the room, there right under the surface in how Tommy looks at him, in the way his face smoothes out into youth, in how his stance shifts to be more open, inviting.

“I don’t think I am, actually,” Jon says, speaking softly, as if trying not to spook a horse.

Tommy still flinches, and Jon knows he has to act quick, now, if he wants to make things right (or something close enough). And suddenly, everything is simple. As if on autopilot, Jon gets off the bed and down on the floor, knee-walking until he can push Tommy against the wall, his face level with Tommy’s crotch, his fingertips brushing over Tommy’s thighs, up the legs of his boxers.

Tommy moves with him for a moment, then he freezes, hands curling into fists at his sides. “Jon, what the fuck –?”

Jon has never done this before, but he knows with chemically induced confidence that he’ll be good at it. He moves his hands up to the waistband of Tommy’s boring grey boxers, such an ugly piece of clothing, Tommy shouldn’t be wearing them. Jon should take them off. Jon _will_ take them off. But first he presses his face against Tommy’s thigh, needs the contact nownownow.

“Jon,” Tommy says. It sounds like nothing so much as a prayer.

Jon looks up at him, just as reverent. “Please, Tom,” he begs, the skin of Tommy’s leg burning against his cheek (or maybe it’s the other way around?), “I want to. Do you want me to?”

Tommy nods, a beautiful bob of his head, but it’s not enough. Jon doesn’t want to take advantage, not really, no matter what he might have fantasized about earlier today. He doesn’t want to do this unless Tommy wants it as much as _he_ does.

“I want to hear you say it,” Jon prompts.

“Yes,” Tommy breathes. “God, Jon, yes. I want you to. Please.”

Jon shuts his eyes, overwhelmed. Tommy’s hand finds its way into Jon’s hair as Jon finally gets rid of the hideous boxers, finally gets his mouth on Tommy’s cock. His palms remember the feel of it even as his lips and tongue experience it for the first time, and then he moves a hand up to move along with his mouth, up and down Tommy’s shaft, rolling his wrist a little; he remembers how Tommy likes it.

Tommy’s head thuds back against the wall, and Jon unsqueezes his eyes to look up Tommy’s long body, up at his bared throat, pale and vulnerable, the angle changing fractionally as Jon’s head bobs. _Wow, that is…_ Tommy’s chest heaves beneath the t-shirt that Jon wishes he’d had presence of mind enough to get him out of earlier. As it is, Jon uses his free hand to scrunch up the fabric, and Tommy takes the hint, rips the t-shirt off. Jon falters for a moment, taking in Tommy’s chest, broader and tanner than the last time they did this. Well, not quite this, Jon has never before done _this_. Fuck, he's been missing out. Anyway. And sure, Jon has seen Tommy’s chest a lot since then, but it’s somehow still new, now, with it’s little brown sun spots over a deepening flush. As Jon lets himself get lost in the familiar-but-other-way-round rhythm of the blowjob again, he absentmindedly runs his palm up and down Tommy’s abs, feels them tighten and relax under his fingers as he goes. Tommy groans above him.

And then, just when Jon starts to feel like they’re really getting somewhere, Tommy freezes again, hand tightening in Jon’s hair.

“Stop,” he gasps, and Jon would curse if he didn’t have his mouth full. Has Tommy come to his senses when Jon needs him to lose his mind? Are they gonna stop before they even really get started?

But no. Apparently they’re not.

“Let’s do this right,” Tommy pants, pushing himself away from the wall. “Come here.”

Tommy leads Jon over to the bed, and Jon follows even though – wasn’t he supposed to take the lead, here?

“Take off your clothes,” Tommy says, a command in a voice that makes Jon happily cede leadership. _Jesus._

Jon thinks he’s being asked to put on a show, but before he’s even opened his fly, Tommy disappears into the bathroom. He soon reappears, though, with a smirk and tiny tube of hotel lotion. He shakes the latter a little in his hand. Jon can’t help to smile back at this reference to Tommy’s comment about hotel lotion during yesterday’s hot tub tete-a-tete, anticipation stirring in him.

Tommy stops, a step or so away from the bed, and just looks at Jon, who’s also naked now. He shivers under Tommy’s gaze.

“Cold?” Tommy asks.

Jon flounders, flustered. “No, I, uh… it’s you.”

“I know,” Tommy says, voice low, like a panther purring. “I’m just teasing. Now lie down.”

Jon falls back on the bed without second thought, and Tommy knees onto the mattress. He lowers himself over Jon, as if he were going to… as if they were going to… But he just pushes one leg between Jon’s and lines up their dicks. Then he squeezes a fair dollop of lotion into his hand. Jon shivers again, which earns him another quick smirk, Tommy glancing between Jon’s mouth and his eyes.

Tommy warms the lotion between his palms for a moment, before wrapping his hand around both of them. They groan together at that first squeeze, and then again when Tommy’s hand really gets moving.

Tommy’s holding himself up with just one arm, muscles rippling as he jerks them off. Jon wants to drink him in, swallow him whole. As a second best alternative, he lets his eyes and his hands rove all over Tommy’s hot skin, up and down his arms, across his nipples, over to his back and for a thrilling second even down to his ass.

Tommy’s body has changed since ‘08. There are way more of those freckles-that-aren’t-freckles (Tommy’s mother calls them “sun spots”) scattered across his torso, over muscles that are bigger than they were when Jon tentatively ran his hands over them as Tommy jerked him off all those years ago. Jon has seen the changes happen, but hasn’t felt them happening under his hands, hasn’t catalogued them with his tongue. Time to do some catching up.

Jon pushes himself up and gets his mouth on Tommy’s collarbone, tracing its length with tongue and teeth. With less space between them, Tommy has to slow the movement of his hand, but it’s worth it to taste the salt of his skin, to hear his little intake of breath as Jon licks from sun spot to sun spot, his louder gasp when he bites down into his shoulder.

Jon even lets his mouth travel up Tommy’s neck, but when he reaches his cheek, Tommy tilts his face away. Jon kisses his ear instead, nibbles on it a little, before he lets himself fall back onto the bed again, so Tommy can speed up, really get them going, bucking against each other.

Tommy, already worked up from the blowjob, reaches his orgasm first. He shoots his load all over his and Jon’s stomachs, and then he falls onto his side, careful not to crush Jon. After catching his breath for a moment, he rolls onto his back, drawing Jon along with him. So now Jon’s looking down at Tommy. Down at Tommy drawing his hand through the come at his own stomach, before wrapping it around Jon’s dick again. _Fuck, that’s hot._

Tommy picks up a punishing pace, up and down until Jon no longer feels the movement, just the breakneck intensity of it all. Soon his abdomen is tensing up, something surging deep within him as he groans and keens. Tommy laughs at him softly for a second, then something changes in his eyes.

“Come on my cock,” Tommy pants, the first thing either of them has said since they started fucking in earnest.

Jon feels himself blush at the words. In the gay porn that Jon only half-acknowledges to himself that he’s ever even watched, that phrase means something different – and of course Jon thinks about it then, about having Tommy’s cock in his ass and coming just from his movements inside him, just from Tommy filling him up. The thought itself is almost enough to have him come on the spot, without heeding Tommy’s request.

Jon angles himself to follow the instruction as it’s meant in the actual here and now. Then he locks eyes with Tommy, electricity charging between their gazes as he tumbles towards absolution, until the pleasure overwhelms him and his eyes screw shut.

When Jon opens his eyes again, they’re unstoppably drawn down between Tommy’s legs, to where his softening dick is completely covered in Jon’s come. The thick whitish liquid is evocative, there, takes on a certain meaning. Like marking his territory. It was Tommy’s idea, but Jon is very into it. _Fuck_ , he could leave a mark for real, lean down over Tommy and get his teeth on his collarbone, bite and suck until Tommy blooms for him, a red rose like a vow.

Jon doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t. This isn’t actually his territory to mark. At least not yet.

\---

Jon wakes up to Tommy extricating himself and getting out of bed. It takes a few moments for him to orient himself, sleep threatening to overtake him again, draw him under. The bed is warm and it smells like Tommy, and Jon lets himself just lie there for a moment, reliving some choice events from the night before. He sucked a dick, and he liked it.

When Tommy doesn’t come back from what Jon had assumed would be a quick morning leak, more and more minutes ticking by, Jon gets up, checks his phone. He suspects that Tommy is trying to get him to leave, that he’s hoping that Jon will be gone when he exits the bathroom. That they’ll pretend that nothing happened. Like they did something wrong. Which, technically, they did, but it didn’t feel wrong to Jon last night. Doesn’t feel wrong _now_ , to stretch out in Tommy’s bed and smell his pillow.

Or maybe Tommy is taking so long because he’s freaking the fuck out in there.

With that thought as motivation, Jon forces himself to get up – _fuck_ , he needs coffee – and roots around for last night’s t-shirt. He finds one that he’s pretty sure actually belongs to him, but it’s not the one he wore yesterday. It’s been stretched out a bit over the shoulders, but it’ll do.

Now dressed – well, kinda – Jon stumbles over to knock on the bathroom door. “Hey, everything okay?”

Tommy’s voice sounds surprisingly normal on the other side of the door, announcing that, “Yeah, I’m fine.”

For a moment Jon thinks that’s all he’s going to get today, a faux casual voice through a wooden barrier. Then the door slides open.

They’re either about to fuck again, or have a Difficult Conversation. Probably the latter, judging from the set of Tommy’s jaw. Still, Jon can’t help but smile when he sees him, face wet and hair a mess. He’s missed Soft Morning Tommy.

“Morning,” Jon gets out, through sleep-clumsy lips.

“We should probably get down to breakfast soon, if we’re going to eat before the flight,” Tommy says briskly, clearly shooting for normal still. But he won’t look at Jon. “I’m going to just hop in the shower first.”

Jon wants to join him in the shower, like Tommy suggested once, when Hillary had just won Massachusetts and they both needed a pick-me-up. Jon had refused him then because it felt too intimate, even as he’d just had Tommy’s mouth on his dick. Ridiculous self-denial.

Jon doesn’t have a plan for how to make that happen for them now, but he has to try. He grabs Tommy’s arm – “Wait. Tommy.” – and steps closer. When Tommy doesn’t stop him, Jon slides his hand up his bicep, the muscle flexing under his palm, and further up, coming to rest against Tommy’s jaw, and then, Tommy finally looks at him. It takes Jon’s breath away.

 _It’s not real if we don’t kiss_ , Jon thinks. And this time, he wants to – _needs_ to – make it real. Because this _is_ real.

“Hey,” Jon mumbles, stupid with adoration. He sways, and leans in, his eyes on Tommy’s half-open mouth.

When their lips meet, Tommy tenses up, then he pulls Jon in, embraces him, hands firm but gentle. Tommy kisses Jon like this is the only chance they’ll ever get, and Jon tries to kiss back like a convincing argument, like an elegant flourish to punctuate a well made point in a speech that resounds with a promise of a better future. Like an applause line for an audience of one.

Jon walks the two of them back into the bathroom, kissing all the while, Tommy’s hands all over him. With Tommy pressed against the counter, Jon rocks their hips together inexpertly, but good enough to get Tommy to gasp into his mouth. They grind against each other, still kissing, until Tommy pulls away, panting. His fingers are still gentle and warm on Jon’s neck, but his eyes are icing over. Jon presses his face into Tommy’s cheek, so he won’t have to see it. Then, before Tommy can say anything, can follow his hard gaze with harder words, Jon kisses him again. This time he goes slow, soft, almost no tongue, the kind of kiss that says love, and time, and commitment.

“Jon,” Tommy says into the kiss, pleading. He pushes Jon away, his hand burning through Jon’s stretched-out t-shirt. Jon can see in his eyes what he’s gonna say before he says it. “I’m going to – I have to be the one to walk away this time. I can’t do this. We can’t.”

‘ _Yes, we can_ ,’ Jon thinks. Not the right words, not for right now. “I want to,” he says instead. “I want you. Tom, I lo –”

He’s cut off by a kiss, neither soft nor slow. _This_ kiss means desperation and urgency… and sex. So both Difficult Conversation and fucking, then. _Tommy_ knows the right angle for both of them to get the perfect friction when he snaps his hips against Jon. His hand is still fire, travelling down Jon’s chest, sliding into his underwear as his tongue slides deeper into Jon’s mouth.

Jon pulls away, looks at Tommy, tries to make sure, once again, that Tommy actually wants this, that this isn’t him trying to drown himself in Jon as a way to avoid thinking about what they’re doing. He doesn’t have enough time to make a real evaluation before Tommy whispers, “Please go.”

Jon’s about to protest, but then he doesn’t. In Tommy’s eyes he sees the _no_ that he’s been steadfastly ignoring for more than 24 hours, now. Fuck. _Fuck_. He nods. Swallows. Leaves.

But even as he makes his retreat, pulling on his jeans from last night and making sure no one sees him as he sneaks from Tommy’s room to his own, Jon knows this isn’t over. Whether he pushes again or not, whether he can make himself stay away, this isn’t over. He knows Tommy well enough to know that right now, Tommy just wants to pretend that this never happened, wants to forget that it actually did. But that won’t last. A week, a month, half a year – sooner or later, Tommy will want to “talk about what happened.” He won’t be able to let it go.

Or maybe he will? After all, the only thing that Tommy has ever let go between the two of them… is this. Them, together. Tommy has never brought their old… dalliance… up before, so maybe he’ll be able to just move on this time too?

Jon gasps for breath, as that thought wraps itself around his throat. He curls up on his own, still-made bed, and cries.

**Author's Note:**

> I have gone back to basically not using my [Podsa Tumblr](https://abriefshoutouttosomeminutiae.tumblr.com/).


End file.
